Jason Swann on Social Justice, Environmental Stewardship, and the Power to Heal
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Aaron: Welcome to The Landscape, your show about America’s parks and public lands. I’m Aaron Weiss at the Center for Western Priorities in Denver. We’ve got a fabulous conversation on the way today about race, diversity, and access to the outdoors.
Our guest today is a Policy Analyst Fellow with Western Resource Advocates, focused on equitable access to public outdoor spaces. He’s also launching a group called Rising Routes, all about cross-cultural intersectional healing and the outdoors. He’s also a leader at Outdoor Afro. Jason Swann, with all of those various hats you’re wearing, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Jason: Well, thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here.
Aaron: So I understand you were born in Atlanta, you grew up in rural Georgia. Give us a sense of your origin story with the outdoors and what experiences in your life brought you to environmental advocacy.
Jason: It’s such a great story. You know, I come from humble beginnings. I was raised in a small shanty in Sparta, Georgia, which is one of the poorest cities in all of Georgia and me and my family of four went down there because my father got a job at the prison system. So if you don’t know anything about Sparta, Georgia people, it’s where professional basketball player Horace Grant was born and raised. And the Negro League player Thomas “Pee Wee” Butts is from Sparta, Georgia. So it has some really rich history. But you know, it is a really small town with more farmland and dirt roads than people. I spent the majority of my time exploring the backwoods, climbing trees, you know, picking pecans for extra money. I spent a lot of time at my grandparent’s home down the famous Baker Row where most of my mother’s side of the family resided. So, you know, just being outdoors is essentially all I had to do. So just experiencing that is where my first love for nature came into play, by being in the sticks. And my grandfather was a sharecropper and seeing him on the land. So that ownership of some of the land and that care for, that stewardship of it is what got me into just loving the outdoors.
Aaron: So then your bio on WRA’s website mentions that you reignited your passion for the outdoors when you moved to Colorado. You joined the Colorado Mountain Club. Share with us what it felt like joining this community, which is obviously a very white community in Colorado when it comes to hiking and climbing. As a Black person going into the wilderness, joining this community, what was that like for you?
Jason: You know, it’s interesting, you get older, right? You leave your home. Society is telling you, you need to go to work, you’ve got to take care of yourself. So I immersed myself in the financial industry for about eight years, and I got away from it. I just got away from the equanimity that the outdoors provides me. And was just sitting behind a cubicle every day — it’s own prison, I like to say.
But it wasn’t until I moved to Colorado and saw the Rocky Mountains and saw the beauty and the wondrous sunrises and landscapes and terrain that Colorado had to offer that I was so infatuated by it that I said, ‘Okay, what do I have to do, to learn everything I can about the outdoors,’ and how to, and more importantly, learn how I can survive in it, by myself or with others. Because coming from the South, you know, the stigma is that we don’t go outside, we don’t do this, we don’t do that. So I always had this idea of going beyond the stereotypes of what Black people don’t do.
And so I joined Colorado Mountain Club because it was in close proximity to where I live. And to be honest with you, to be completely frank, I was so in love with the idea of exploring Colorado wilderness that race wasn’t really initially on my mind. I simply wanted to learn all I could about how to survive. And Colorado Mountain Club provided me that opportunity to take my first educational courses to learn about how to do that. But, I will say this, it was apparent and very easily recognizable that I was probably the only ethnic person, or at least the the ethnic groups that I’m usually accustomed to being around were highly underrepresented. And I was the only Black person in my course.
But, you know, again, I didn’t allow that to deter me from making connections. I’m an extrovert, and I want to learn more from the experts. So I put myself out there, I talked to as many people as I could, I tried to befriend as many people as I could, and even tried to have someone as a mentor for me.
But I do believe the biggest challenge as a novice explorer was the gatekeepers of knowledge. I hope that makes sense. So, you know, there are people who are very highly experienced, and for me, that’s who I wanted to guide me, that’s who I want to mentor me. And I felt that I couldn’t be in the fold of these experienced people because all they wanted to do was essentially, you know, experience Colorado’s wondrous landscapes with other experienced explorers, right? Or discuss the latest fad in gear that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that’s just not where I was in my life.
And so, as an extrovert, as someone who really enjoys people, I wanted to talk about real issues around the linkage between mental health and the outdoors. I wanted to talk about racial and social justice and my Black experience without criticism, without any type of judgment, which I believe many of the people there were not necessarily comfortable discussing, or perhaps it just wasn’t the place for it right. You know, it was a place for education, it was a place for people to learn about the outdoors and to build connections to the outdoors. But when you wanted to talk about your journey towards, you know, anti-racism and things like that, people were not comfortable being uncomfortable with those types of conversations. And so, that led me to explore that.
Aaron: So it sounds like your experience there, and I don’t want to focus too much on Colorado Mountain Club because I think that experience is probably pretty common across the country, that sort of gatekeeping that you get when folks want to get outdoors. How does that then bring you to Rising Routes?
Jason: Oh, that is a good transition. Well, I’ll have to go back just a little bit, because I have to go back to where I grew up. Not necessarily where I grew up, but where I came from prior to coming to Colorado, which was Omaha, Nebraska.
Before I came to Colorado, I was in the financial field. I was just starting to engage in the outdoors as much as I did when I was a youth by going camping and things like that in Nebraska, in flatland country, right in the cornhusker land.
But an experience woke me up to the disparities of our judicial system. An experience woke me up to understanding that there was a lack of empathy and concern for other people’s problems. Essentially, I was wrongfully accused of something I didn’t do. I was beat up and thrown in jail for numerous days. I dealt with the judicial system for almost over a year, trying to reduce a sentence for something that I didn’t commit. And ultimately, it created barriers in my own career path in the financial world where I was thriving prior to that incident. And now I had barriers where, because I had a record, no one would want to hire me. It just made it a lot more difficult to move up. And so when that happened, and I moved to Colorado, and I experienced this peace and freedom of the outdoors, it aided my mental health so well. And allowed me to sit with myself and to heal from the trauma that that experience caused me that I felt like everyone should be enjoying this, everyone should have a piece of what that feels like. And so the spark of Rising Routes was lit at that point.
So yeah, that’s essentially how we got started. And I guess, if you want to know about what Rising Routes is, just a real quick one liner…
Aaron: Well, more than more than one line because I think you’ve opened up a whole lot of different paths here I want to go down. So yes, give us the description of Rising Routes and what it’s doing, and then I want to explore the intersections between racial justice, injustices in the criminal justice system, and how the outdoors can fit into all of that picture, because I think it’s something that most people don’t even think about in that way, even after last summer and the George Floyd protests.
Jason: There’s two things here. There’s a mental health component, there’s an environmental stewardship component, and then there’s this social justice component to Rising Routes. There’s this nexus between all three and we’re trying to intertwine those and work those together with Rising Routes. And the reason why I say that social justice is evident is based off of my experiences. So there’s this nexus that I found when I first moved here as far as, you know, falling in love with the outdoors. When you fall in love with the outdoors, you have this interest in preserving it, this interest in making sure that you steward it because you love it so much. You love the trails that you are accustomed to, that go to your favorite places. And so when you start seeing rapid climate change and wildfires and everything else that is happening in places that you love to recreate, you know, your heart cries and so you really want to figure out a way to help it. So that was that piece.
But then there was the mental health piece, because it brought me so much freedom to be out there, it cleared my mind and provided a sanctuary for me to heal from those past traumas and experiences.
And then the social issue didn’t come in until the co-founder of Rising Route, Marisa Jarae, came onboard. And she really got me involved with all of the outdoor organizations that are in Colorado, that are led by Black, Indigenous, and racially and ethnically diverse people. And so, once I found that, and I found that a lot of these organizations were about social justice, it only made sense that we should put that into the fold as well for Rsing Routes. So that’s essentially how that started.
Aaron: So what does that look like in practice. You are starting up this group, what will it do from a program level?
Jason: From a program level, you know, we want to be able to immerse people in the outdoors. We want to be able to take different people from different backgrounds, from different life lenses, to be able to recreate in the outdoors together. But while we’re outdoors, we want to do some of that internal work, that recognition of and the healing of our own traumas and our community traumas. We feel like only then can we come together to practice what we’ve learned in the form of deep and active empathy.
Because to be honest with you, empathy and trust are the foundations for meaningful collaboration. And we also feel like it’s the starting point to positive change and healing that we need in the world right now. And so, doing that with different cultures, with different ethnicities, with different genders, to come together and learn from each other, we feel like that’s a part of our programming.
Aaron: Let’s dive in a little bit into that connection between mental health and mental health care and how that fits into restorative justice and racial justice in the criminal justice system. In America, it sounds like you’re making a point that I think is overlooked a lot, which is that the trauma that comes with the systemic racism in the criminal justice system has long term psychological emotional effects across the African-American community and people of color broadly.
Jason: Absolutely.At this point, when I hear people talk about saving the planet or healing the planet or climate change, I have to first take a step back and say, “we have to first work to create a society and a system that has the capacity to work as one, where people are accepted for who they are without othering or oppression.” We feel like an oppressive othering system can never hope to unite to save the planet, because it wasn’t designed to do so in the first place. So, you know, we want to be dedicated to designing a system that will support all people as they wish to be seen, in communion with each other and the planet. And so, you know, we feel like that is the foundation in which people can start to self-actualize. Other concerns, such as healing the planet, we need to be making sure that we live more harmoniously on this earth together, or be able to even get to the point where we can do the healing work. It’s interesting because a lot of our basic needs of safety, food, and water are being threatened by climate change. And so, people have to be able to kind of redefine their identity in the systems through which they live right now, so that they can change their behavior and their attitudes and their identities so that they can be able to do the work to be able to help save the planet, or at least, you know, stop this catastrophic climate change from being exacerbated even more.
Aaron: Now, that all makes sense by it. My question then becomes about that gate keeping that you mentioned. We talk a lot on this podcast about public lands opportunities to get outside and enjoy national parks and national monuments. But we don’t talk as much about the barriers for folks to access those places, whether they are the physical transportation challenges, this sense that you need lots of expensive gear, or just the gatekeeping within that wilderness and outdoors community. Can you just explain from your experience what some of those barriers are and what the steps are to breaking them down?
Jason: Yeah, yeah. Like I mentioned before, it’s just that not enough people are doing the internal work. I always go back to that, because there is a lack of understanding of the historical systems of alienation, discrimination, dispossession of Indigenous people and minority groups that have created this systemic inequity on our public lands. So, you know, we really have to understand our history and why we are here today. These long standing divisions and discouragement and powerlessness amongst people who are racially and ethnically diverse is essentially what’s keeping us from moving ahead. I was just looking at a few stats. 70% of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal plant. 80% of Latinos or Latinas are living in counties that violate federal air pollution laws. So, you know, we have to treat climate change as a racial justice issue. And we have to do the internal work to understand the historical inequities that have happened that have led us to this point where there are access issues to getting outdoors.
And, you know, there’s been a disinvestment in our communities. So how do we get back to investing in the communities that have been disproportionately affected by climate change? You know, because money is not just one thing, I don’t want to always say you can throw money at an issue and it is going to help it solve a problem. That’s why I go back to that internal work, really recognizing that we do have a lot of trauma built inside of ourselves that we need to be able to fix, and not just not just ethnically and racially diverse people but also, you know, our white counterparts as well.
Aaron: So, obviously this is not a problem you can simply throw money at to solve, but at the same time, in our current system we have these racial disparities that are the result of hundreds of years worth of funding disparities. So for the parts that you do want to see more funding coming at, what does that get in terms of change. And in terms of funding, where should it be going, especially now that you have an administration coming into the White House that is putting environmental justice and racial justice on equal footing as a priority going forward?
Jason: Yeah, yeah. You know, it’s good to hear all the talk. But it’s got to come with action. It’s got to come with some dollars. You know, we’re watching, I think the communities are watching what this President is doing and really want to hold people accountable to their words. And I know I do. So many times, I think presidents have come in and said things that they haven’t really fulfilled promises on. So, you know, I’m just gonna wait and see, but I mean, money is certainly good, right? There are communities right now that are led by racially and ethnically diverse people, nonprofits that are led by those individuals who actually work deeply with communities, who are doing community-curated activities to get people outdoors, but due to resources not being adequately accessible, money has been diverted to larger organizations that can scale a lot more than we can. It’s actually sad when you think about it, because knowing that, particularly in Colorado, the ethnic minorities here are going to, by 2050, be almost over half of the population of the workforce according to the self sufficiency standard, it basically shows us that if we don’t do something about investing in those communities today, and those businesses today, Colorado is going to fall behind a lot of other states economically, and I know we care about making sure that Colorado is a leader in a lot of areas. So we want to make sure that we start investing. And looking in the rural areas of Colorado, if it wasn’t for those communities coming in and setting up shop, the population decline would be more prevalent in rural areas. So because of the diversity that’s starting to move into those rural areas, it’s keeping those towns afloat. So we really got to start focusing more on that. And I don’t want it to be like climate change, when we waited too long to do anything about it. And now we are dealing with devastating wildfires and everything else. There’s so many issues to solve, and it needs to come from the top. Leadership needs to step up. There are a lot of tax incentives that the wealthy people here in Colorado get that don’t need to be there anymore that could bring millions of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars back into Colorado.
Aaron: I want to ask about Outdoor Afro. It’s a great organization. We’ve mentioned it in the past here on the podcast and they’ve been growing in the last couple years. How did you get involved with Outdoor Afro and what do you think its impact is going forward?
Jason: Yeah, I’ve got so many good things to say about Outdoor Afro, I really just encourage any Black person to look up Outdoor Afro and to get involved because it has done wonders for my life. One, being just connected with other leaders throughout this country that are doing amazing things in environmentalism and conservation and just out in nature in general. And giving back to the communities that need it the most, it’s been inspiring to be able to take people out on a hike, show them the beauty of Colorado, and have them be inspired to want to get involved in protecting it. That is the key right there, because we were some of the first investors on this land. I want us to know that we are and have always been connected to the earth. So Outdoor Afro has given me leadership, it has given me confidence, and I don’t even know where else is going to take me but it is definitely living by its mission of inspiring a Black leadership in the outdoors.
Aaron: So second to last question then. After everything we saw in 2020 — Black Lives Matter protests, finally an acknowledgement from white folks that we are long overdue in acknowledging and grappling with the racist underpinnings of everything in American society. Where do you see the conservation and environmental justice movements going and how can they play a positive, proactive role within the broader racial justice movement that came to the forefront last year?
Jason: You know, I think, almost like I mentioned before, we have to start looking at climate change as a racial justice issue. And, you know, we believe the barriers to build a powerful movement and engage in this environmental crisis, and hopefully to get our communities to reach some type of self actualization, is ultimately due to our inability to meet our most basic psychological and safety needs. I don’t know how much I need to go back through that, but again, these long standing divisions between these groups have created a lack of trust and feelings of discouragement and powerlessness, largely due to oppression, and indeed, systemic inequity. So I just think that going forward, those issues have to be solved in tandem with our common focus. And if we can increase awareness and help communities find the right motivation to change their identities and behavior to act, then we were doing something, right. And I think that’s why we go back to Rising Routes, because the reality is that if we’re thinking about healing the planet, it’s going to take an identity shift, it’s going to take a change of life from every person alive. And if most people feel othered or threatened in some way in their daily lives, I don’t see how anyone can be expected to focus on the much larger picture, which is climate change. So I think this movement will suffer if our focus isn’t on making sure that we replace the system that we currently live in, that has harmed the majority of people, and is now hurting much of life on Earth.
Aaron: It’s not just policy, there’s emotional work that everyone has to put in here.
Jason: Yes, and we need a place to do that. We need a brave, safe place to do that. And I don’t want to use the word safe, because I feel like at the end of the day, even if you have all the circumstances built around to make this as the most quote unquote safe place, that people are still going to at times still feel triggered, it can still feel out of place and still feel othered. So you have to be brave, you have to be comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Because if you haven’t been in places where this is the norm for you, you haven’t been immersed in other people’s cultures and identities and behaviors, then yes, it’s going to feel weird. Yeah, it’s going to feel different. You can talk to anybody who has traveled the world and they’ll tell you that they were uncomfortable. They felt different and like an outsider. But ultimately, they got over it, because they put the time and the work in and the healing and the practice that it takes. And so that’s all I’m asking for Coloradans to do and that’s all I’m asking for nature to be able to do.
Aaron: Last question then, where are the places in Colorado that you have discovered where you have found that connection and comfort and healing? The places outdoors, where do you like to go?
Jason: Oh, man, you know what I’ll say? I’ll say some hard places, right. You got to work for it. Let’s say one of the hardest hikes I’ve done but has one of the best benefits if you can get there is up to Door Lake. You have to go off trail and it’s in the Gore Range. I can’t even explain I’m just going to leave it there. And then the other spot would be, my favorite hikes when I moved to Colorado are two places. One that’s pretty busy already and they’re having a lot of troubles with people going there, is Arapaho Pass to Lake Dorothy, in Nederland, I think it’s the Roosevelt National Forest. And then the last one and one I do every year is up to Mount Ida in Rocky Mountain National Park.Go there, you won’t be disappointed.
Aaron: All right, we’re gonna leave it there. Jason Swann with Rising Routes, Outdoor Afro, and Western Resource Advocates. Jason, thank you so much for this conversation. It has been fascinating and illuminating for me, I hope certainly for all the listeners as well, and I really appreciate you taking the time and for your candor today.
Jason: Thank you for having me. I appreciate you.
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